Alexander Johannesen wrote:
<snip>
No, you've proved nothing. What are you holding up as evidence here?
You merely talking about the wonders of a different method doesn't
mean the different method by default is proven better.
</snip>
Pardon, I have never maintained that searching library catalogs is *better.* I have said that there are powers that are absolutely not in the Google-type searches, and that these powers are important. While you may continue to maintain that you can search concepts through these newer tools, or that it's unimportant to do so, many of my students certainly have problems with full-text and have wound up in deep holes. The Semantic Web project wouldn't need to be built. I demonstrated what you would miss by searching Google in the way you did "blacks agriculture united states", but those are all dismissed, and besides, how could somebody be aware of materials you never even see in the first place? You didn't see it; you were happy with the result you would get in Google, even after I showed some of the concepts you could not--by definition--possibly see or even know about. How are you supposed to know about these things that are in your "concept" but that don't appear in your se!
arch result?
(Somehow the entire argument seems reminiscent of the "Unknown unknowns" of Donald Rumsfeld. See "The Poetry of D.H. Rumsfeld" Seeley, Hart. The Poetry of D.H. Rumsfeld, Slate, April 2, 2003, at http://www.slate.com/id/2081042. See his "poem" The Unknown) :-)
How do you do this in a library catalog? It's a lot of work. You have to find the authorized forms (i.e. "concepts") of everything, look at the cross-references for related "concepts," find catalog records that seem to match your search and search the "concepts" you find there. The tool is powerful if you know how to use it. But I can't show this in 5 minutes--that's why there is such a thing as bibliographic instruction and information literacy courses.
I fully agree that it is too much work to expect people to do this today. What people were forced into doing 25 years ago because there was no choice just doesn't work today. Different databases have to be merged, all kinds of helps for the users must be created and implemented. But searching by concepts is too important to simply dump, which is what it seems as if you are advocating.
<snip>
> And within certain, known limits, people can search concepts in a
> library catalog.* Period. I realize that this must be very
> uncomfortable, but it cannot be denied, only ignored or to say that it's unnecessary.
No, it's not uncomfortable ; it's nonsense.
</snip>
Of course it's nonsense. I'm glad you have such a deep expertise on the fundamentals of how a catalog works that it simply outshines all of my own experiences as well as that of many other catalogers on this list, so that our ideas can simply be dismissed as nonsense. Continue to insist that a search for "cats" or "blacks" or "Dostoyevsky" pull out their related "concepts" from Google, and maintain how useful they are to people. And people will believe it until it is not just a matter of surfing and hunting around, and information becomes a serious matter for them. That's when we have to pick them up.
This is one of the big problems that catalogers have towards many systems people. While catalogers and librarians are supposed to respect everything the systems people say about the power of the new searching (which my students will insist doesn't work much of the time, protestations to the contrary--but their complaints can all be ignored), these same systems people insist that they know everything we know, only more and better.
I am happy in your faith in Google. It is truly unshakeable.
Regards,
James Weinheimer j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu
Director of Library and Information Services
The American University of Rome
via Pietro Roselli, 4
00153 Rome, Italy
voice- 011 39 06 58330919 ext. 258
fax-011 39 06 58330992
Received on Mon Apr 26 2010 - 10:13:34 EDT